Friday 14 July 1665

Up, and all the morning at the Exchequer endeavouring to strike tallys for money for Tangier, and mightily vexed to see how people attend there, some out of towne, and others drowsy, and to others it was late, so that the King’s business suffers ten times more than all their service is worth. —[All government’s business have been and are yet conducted in the same wasteful and desultory way. D.W.]— So I am put off to to-morrow. Thence to the Old Exchange, by water, and there bespoke two fine shirts of my pretty seamstress, who, she tells me, serves Jacke Fenn. Upon the ‘Change all the news is that guns have been heard and that news is come by a Dane that my Lord was in view of De Ruyter, and that since his parting from my Lord of Sandwich he hath heard guns, but little of it do I think true. So home to dinner, where Povy by agreement, and after dinner we to talk of our Tangier matters, about keeping our profit at the pay and victualling of the garrison, if the present undertakers should leave it, wherein I did [not] nor will do any thing unworthy me and any just man, but they being resolved to quit it, it is fit I should suffer Mr. Povy to do what he can with Mr. Gauden about it to our profit. Thence to the discoursing of putting some sums of money in order and tallys, which we did pretty well. So he in the evening gone, I by water to Sir G. Carteret’s, and there find my Lady Sandwich and her buying things for my Lady Jem.’s wedding; and my Lady Jem. is beyond expectation come to Dagenhams, where Mr. Carteret is to go to visit her to-morrow; and my proposal of waiting on him, he being to go alone to all persons strangers to him, was well accepted, and so I go with him. But, Lord! to see how kind my Lady Carteret is to her! Sends her most rich jewells, and provides bedding and things of all sorts most richly for her, which makes my Lady and me out of our wits almost to see the kindnesse she treats us all with, as if they would buy the young lady. Thence away home and, foreseeing my being abroad two days, did sit up late making of letters ready against tomorrow, and other things, and so to bed, to be up betimes by the helpe of a larum watch, which by chance I borrowed of my watchmaker to-day, while my owne is mending.

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Annotations

Alarm c.1325, from O.Fr. alarme, from It. all'arme "to arms!" (lit. "to the arms"). An interj. that came to be used as the name of the call or warning. Extended 16c. to "any sound to warn of danger or to arouse." Weakened sense of "apprehension, unease" is from 1833. Variant alarum is due to the rolling -r- in the vocalized form.

Don't do it Sam...You can still save us from the beeping, buzzing, never-ceasing horrors about to come. Break that hideous thing, cast it into the sea! While it may too late for us at least some parallel Earth may be spared.

"which makes my Lady and me out of our wits almost to see the kindnesse she treats us all with" Sam's language is sometimes so modern and immediate. This "out of our wits almost" is one of those times.

Communicates advices, brought by a Danish Ship, of the course of De Ruyter's Squadron, and also of the severities exercised in Holland against many naval officers. "I hope", adds the Writer, "it will make them more ready to yield their ships hereafter, than to return home to be hanged." Adds particulars as to the filling up of various commissions &c. ...

Has had an interview with Lady Jemima Montagu at Dagenham [the seat of Lady Wright, a sister of Lord Sandwich]. She "doth with all chearfulness & decent consideration, commit herself to the conduct & direction of ... Your Lordp and My Lady, my Ld Crewe, others of her relations" ... [in respect of her marriage with Mr. Carteret.]

When I was on the staff of the Senate Budget Committee in its first year of operation we adopted a counting rule in which 1 = $1,000,000,000 and 0.1, equalling $100,000,000, was the smallest sum that, supposedly, we would concern ourselves with. At an earlier time Sen. Dirksen of Illinois famously said, "A billion here, a billon there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money." Nowadays, 40 years later, we are juggling trillions. Exactitude suffers.

See 30 July 1664: "I finished the contracts for victualling of Tangier with Mr. Lanyon and the rest, and to my comfort got him and Andrews to sign to the giving me 300l. per annum, by which, at least, I hope to be a 100l. or two the better." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1664/07/30/

“my proposal of waiting on him, he being to go alone to all persons strangers to him, was well accepted, and so I go with him.”

L&M note that a "family adviser" was a usual presence during the courtship in an arranged marriage at that time; that here Pepys's client as matchmaker is Lady Jemima Mountagu; and that John Locke will perform that function in 1669 for the son of Shaftesbury (whose secretary he was).

Charlotte de Caumont (1623-1666), married in 1651 Marshal Turenne. She was Protestant, as her husband. Many years later the famous Marshal converted and died a Catholic.I looked around and found no other Turenne ladies in those years.

Hinchinbroke, Sandwich’s son, is spending some time abroad with his tutor?

Perhaps a recap may be of interest here.

The two Sandwich sons, Lord Hinchingbroke (Edward) and Sydney Montague (the younger and favourite son) had departed on the Grand Tour in August 1661. Sydney had returned in May 1664 while his brother went on the full Tour and returned in August 1665.

Sydney is mentioned by Sandwich in his Journal as being with the Fleet during the time of the Battle of Lowestoft but is not mentioned in any action. He will sail with Teddiman to Bergan at the end of this month.

...."Why, Mr. Wheatley - an editorial comment?!? Some temptations are beyond resisting, it seems."—[All government’s business have been and are yet conducted in the same wasteful and desultory way. D.W.]"

"my Lady Jem. is beyond expectation come to Dagenhams, where Mr. Carteret is to go to visit her:

L&M: Dagnams, Essex, the home of Lady Wright, widow of Sir Henry Wright (d. 1663) and Lady Jemimah Mountagu's aunt. The house (pulled down and rebuilt in the late 18th century: now demolished) had been built by Sir Henry. It stood about three miles from the village of Dagenham, on part of what is now the Harold Hill Estate.